News and Views 04.04.25 

Islam

• British builders rebel against Lake District mosque. A new £2.5million mosque is being built on the edge of the Lake District. The South Lakes Islamic Centre says the facility will be used by more than 100 local Muslim families, many of whom currently have a 100-mile round-trip to their nearest place of worship. Full planning permission was granted for the site in 2022, despite 30 formal objections. But work on the project has apparently ground to a standstill as, in an unorganised but effective boycott, local construction workers and suppliers are refusing to participate in the development, citing concerns over the impact on the community and the area's natural beauty.
• Claims of ‘right-wing apoplectic meltdown’. The Islamic Centre admitted it has faced “unprecedented difficulties securing materials and labour”, and have had to look elsewhere. They have also issued an emergency funding appeal to supporters. GB News was one of the first to raise concerns about the mosque – they have been criticised as causing a racist, “right-wing apoplectic meltdown as Islamophobes rant and rave against the plan.”

• Hamas tortures Gazan protester to death. Odai al-Rabei, a 22-year-old Gazan, was abducted, tortured, and murdered by Hamas terrorists, after he participated in protests against Hamas. The terrorists tied a rope around his neck, dragged him through the streets of Gaza, and then beat him with clubs and iron bars. He was said to have been tortured for four hours, before being returned dead and bloody to his family’s home days later. All this in a warning against any further protests against its rule in the Gaza Strip. But further protests surfaced at Odai's funeral, when his father called for revenge, saying that Allah would punish his son's murderers; everyone attending shouted “Amen”.
• Crackdown leads to protests subsiding. But although little publicised, a further 5 Palestinians were also tortured and murdered by Hamas last week. The brutal crackdown led to the protests quickly subsiding. “Hamas is our plague, a plague that is dragging us all into hell,” a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip texted his Israeli employer in the south. The notion that the anti-Hamas protests were actually “a show by the Iran-backed Hamas to fool the world into thinking that there is an uprising against the terrorist group”, with Hamas members apparently being spotted leading some of the demonstrations has been staunchly refuted by some. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a member of Hamas’s police force was executed in Gaza after a local clan accused him of murdering one of its kin, further raising political tensions in the Strip.

• Where is the UK’s foreign aid is going? With America having created a Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’) to get rid of unnecessary expenditure, many are urging a similar review in the UK. In 2023/24, the UK Government spent £15.3 billion on foreign aid. Close to £4.3 billion was spent on “in donor refugee costs” – a 9-fold rise since before covid, reflecting the soaring toll of immigration, including illegal small boat crossings.  Up to £8.2 million per day goes towards accommodation for asylum seekers. £15 million is being given to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, directed through agencies like UNRWA and the WHO. £1.8 billion of UK taxpayers' foreign aid has gone to 30 countries richer than the poorest UK borough, including to China and oil-rich Guyana, which are richer than 75% of the local authorities in the UK. Syria was granted £50 million following the collapse of Assad’s regime.  Britain will hand out £3.16 billion to regional programmes in 2024-25.  This includes to countries such as to Sudan and Ethiopia, both of which are mired in civil war.

• US insists freedom of speech is under threat in UK. In a highly unorthodox step, the US State Department has issued a statement saying it is “concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom”. The warning comes after J.D. Vance the vice-president, said in February that he feared “free speech in Britain and across Europe was in retreat”.  One case which helped convinced the White House inner circle that Britain has a problem with freedom of speech was that of a pro-life campaigner who is being prosecuted after she held a sign saying “here to talk if you want” outside the British Pregnancy Advisory Service abortion clinic in Bournemouth in 2023. The campaigner, Livia Tossici-Bolt, has been convicted on Friday of breaching the 'buffer zone'. Read also here and here.
• UK free speech crackdown. According to Allison Pearson in the Telegraph, “every day there is another betrayal of our wartime generation and the values which they fought for”.  Some very recent examples include:

1. A four-year-old boy has been suspended from nursery and branded ‘transphobic’ for “abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity”.
2. The parents of a nine-year-old girl were held at a police station for 11 hours because they complained (often) about their daughter’s primary school.
3. A grandmother was visited by plain-clothes policemen because she posted a private message criticising a Labour councillor.
4. Reform donor Charlie Mullins said he “criticised Labour and the thought police came for me” – insisting the attempt to remove his OBE was politically driven and mean-spirited. He has since joined the Free Speech Union.

• Fresh revelations cast doubt on climate change alarmism. Although it is almost universally accepted that climate change is responsible for recent floods around the world (including in Pakistan, Spain and Germany, which have caused enormous damage), a new study led by the University of Exeter shows that Climate change is NOT the main cause, and recent floods are not exceptional if we look further into the past. Similarly, while the BBC and others insisted that climate change was a major factor behind the recent Los Angeles wildfires, citing a report produced by World Weather Attribution, theoretical physicist and science writer Dr Sabine Hossenfelder has elicited an astonishing admission from one of the report’s authors that the role of climate change was “not statistically significant”.
• Climate crisis: a made-up scare story, claims Professor Emeritus. Dr William Happer, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, renowned physicist, member of the US National Academy of Sciences as well as American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and winner of several prestigious scientific awards, has claimed that the climate crisis is “all a made-up scare story pushed by lust for money and power … If you read about climate in the newspapers or listen to some talk about climate on television, it will be very, very far from the truth”, he asserted.

• C of E diocese issues 'anti-racist' guide for worshippers. In what is believed to be the first example of Church of England prayer being subject to diversity plans, the Diocese of Norwich has issued parishes with an “anti-racist toolkit”. The toolkit tells priests to ensure prayers are not “entirely Eurocentric”. It also tells churches to recognise special days which people from ethnic minorities may celebrate, such as Racial Justice Sunday. Using different languages in songs and hymns to improve “linguistic diversity and intercultural worship” in music is encouraged.
• Safeguarding courses for flower arrangers. The Church of England is also insisting that all its workers, and even volunteers that wish to help with flower arranging, or to become a local church warden, first have to undergo online safeguarding courses. One mandatory course caters for safeguarding in care homes. The courses are intended to “equip you and your church to engage positively with the protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults in both a practical and theologically informed way.”